Bug Village a Cute & Dazzling 3D Colony Building Game

Bug Village is a game from Glu Mobile, well known game developers responsible for games such as Bonsai Blast, Gun Bros and Brain Genius Deluxe. Bug Village, unsurprisingly, puts you in charge of building your own little colony of ants and bees. The game is very very cute as you feed them sugar cubes and cookies, set them tasks and collect acorns. Build homes, create piles to generate resources and add flowers and other decorations. It’s almost too cute.

Pros & Cons:

Beautiful 3D graphics that wouldn’t really be out of place on an early Playstation.

Lots of items to build/add, etc.

Addictive and immersive gameplay.

Good music and sound effects.

Lots of tasks and duties to build your village.

Real-time tasks, return to the game regularly.

Cons

You are somewhat limited unless you spend real money on in-game coins. The game allows you to earn acorns, but to get extra items and speed up game-play you will have to open your real wallet and buy coins.

Features:

Bug Village is a dazzling 3D ‘God-game’ where you build and nurture a colony of ants and bees. The graphics are smooth and rather breath-taking as you gradually build your resources, construct little ant homes and bees nests. There are dozens of items to buy which adds a significant depth to the game.

First thing you need to do in the game is generate resources. To do so, you need to create a pile of stuff. The ants then set to work on this pile, gathering resources and ultimately adding acorns to your stash. These are the tasks you set the ants and you can adjust the time you want the task to be completed in. The longer the task the more resources you generate. Once you have collected plenty of acorns you may want to build a few more houses, more ants, more ants more piles, more piles, more resources and so on, it’s its own miniature social economy.

You also earn extra acorns if you find a ladybug who has fallen on her back and cannot get up. Tap her twice and she gets to her feet, rewarding you with some acorns. There are also some unwelcome visitors to Bug Village- if you spot a Stinky Bug or an Ant Lion you need to shoo them away (by tapping on them), this also rewards you with acorns. As you can tell the game play is sickly sweet and cutesy, perhaps too cute for some people.

You also need to keep your bugs fed. You do this by buying items for them to chow down on, options include sugar cubes, cookies, cupcakes, cheese or ice-cream- clearly nutritious fodder for scavenging bugs! Here too is where real cash is required, as the most powerful foods cost coins which you need to buy.

You are given a variety of on-going tasks to help you build your village; build a certain number of houses, have a certain number of piles, etc. In a way it feels very much like playing Farmville or CityVille on Facebook, the added tasks help you learn about the game and build your village.

There is the ability to build the village exactly how you want it, and lots of space in the game to inhabit and grow. There are a huge variety of decorations and extras to add to your village to please the ants and bees including little tables and chairs, flowers, clovers, etc., it really can be your own creation. Obviously the idea is to run your village well and add lots of new ants to your colony. One thing to help you do this is the notifications; when a task you previously set your ants is complete you will get a notification to enter the game and continue playing/building/setting new tasks. While this might be irritating to some people (it can be switched off), if you are working hard at building your village it makes sure your ants are not idly doing nothing until you return. It takes little time to check in on the game and get things going again- like I have said, very similar in many ways to something like Farmville, only cuter.

Fun Factor:

The game is a lot of fun, especially if you are a fan of such build/nurture/expand games. Spend some time with it and it becomes very immersive. If you have little patience however this game probably isn’t for you. The game-play is at a very pedestrian pace and like similar games already mentioned it will take you a while to build your village properly.

Addictive:

Once you get the hang of it, it really is very addictive. The game doesn’t require buckets of commitment- like a tamagotchi, you just nip into the game very so often and get things done; feed your ants, reset a pile, overturn a ladybug, chase off a Stinky Bug, etc. Then you put your phone away and forget about it for a while. There’s not many games like this on Android so it’s relatively original for the platform.

Graphics:

The graphics are pretty stunning. Bright primary coloured goodness rendered in luxurious 3D, full of little details and effects; like Stinky Bugs’ gas or the way piles sparkle when you need to set ants of sort them out.

Accelerometer, Vibration & Sound:

The sound is very high quality, but you would expect that from Glu. The music is a kind of lazy country backing track that fits in well with the cute village environment. This is added to with dinky little sound effects to acknowledge little achievements- there is even a little ant cheer when you complete certain things.

AndroidTapp.com Rating

(4.5 out of 5)

Should you Download Bug Village? Bug Village is just about the cutest, sweetest, most sugary game available on Android. If you idea of blissful gaming fun involves gently tapping a little ladybug until she gets up, dusts herself off and rewards you with acorns this has to be an essential game for you. Bug Village is incredibly well executed and I’m sure it will generate a huge fan-base of people who want high-quality Farmville-style gameplay on their Android phone. Subsequently this game is not going to be for everyone, add to this the in-game economy that requires you to pay real money for items and extras some people are just not going to get into it. Bug Village can become very addictive and well worth a try, children will probably adore it and the entertainment of little ones is always a bonus for parents. If this sounds like your thing it is definitely worth downloading and getting stuck in.